Asudat, însetat, încins, într-o poziţie total incomodă şi obosit peste măsură. Mi-am numărat toate nemulţumirile cu cinism.

Erau destule. Şi din mai multe puncte de vedere. Stăteam pe scaunul şoferului dintr-o maşină sport, construită la comandă, cu o formă aerodinamică, jucărie aruncată cu dispreţ de fiul unui şeic. În scaunul ei am stat mare parte a ultimelor trei zile. În faţa mea se întinde câmpia arsă de soare tocmai până la dealurile maroniu-roşcate care se văd sub orizont. Ceas după ceas formele lor cocoşate rămân la fel de îndepărtate, pentru că modelul special de 150 de cai putere nu se mişcă.

Şi nici eu. Privesc posac la cătuşele solide cu care îmi sunt prinse încheieturile mâinilor. Lanţul lor a fost petrecut prin rotocolul volanului, drept care pot spune că sunt una cu el şi în consecinţă parte integrantă a maşinii.

Mai este o mică problemă şi cu centurile de siguranţă. Speciala nu porneşte decât dacă centurile de siguranţă au fost prinse. În pofida faptului că nu există nicio cheie în contact, centura de siguranţă a fost prinsă foarte bine: am o curea petrecută peste abdomen şi o alta petrecută în diagonală peste piept.

Nu am reuşit să-mi ridic picioarele în aşa fel încât să pot lovi volanul cu genunchii. Ştiu, pentru că am încercat. Sunt prea înalt şi nu-mi pot îndoi genunchii aşa de mult. În plus, volanul nu este făcut din plastic obişnuit, casabil.

Cei care construiesc maşini speciale cum este aceasta nu stau să se încurce cu volane de plastic. Cel de care sunt legat este mic în diametru şi a fost făcut din metal îmbrăcat în piele, la fel de durabil precum Mont Blancul.

Eram sătul de stat în maşină. Fiecare muşchi, începând cu cei de la picioare, spinare şi braţe protesta energic împotriva poziţiei incomode. În spatele ochilor simţeam, cum oboseala se transforma, încet dar sigur, în durere.

Venise vremea să fac un alt efort ca să mă eliberez, deşi ştiam deja din experienţă că era un gest inutil.

Am început să trag, să mă încordez, mi-am folosit toată forţa ca să scap de centuri şi cătuşe până când am năduşit din nou, fără să fi izbutit să fac mare scofală.

Mi-am sprijinit capul de tetiera moale a scaunului şi mi-am întors faţa spere geamul deschis din dreapta. Am închis ochii. Am simţit imediat arsura soarelui de iulie pe obraz, gât şi umăr.

Îi simţeam dogoarea pe pleoapa stângă. Am lăsat să-mi apară pe frunte linii adânci de frustrare şi durere, buzele mi s-au strâns cu amărăciune şi muşchii maxilarului mi s-au încordat. Arătam ca un om care şi-a pierdut şi ultima fărâmă de speranţă.

Famous actor Edward Lincoln is encouraged to head to South Africa to try to determine why certain race horses are preforming so poorly. He ultimately gets roped into a dangerous situation as his investigation is interfering with someone who is willing to kill. Will Edward find out who is trying to kill him before it becomes to late?

I started listening to this book as an audio book and finished it as a traditional paperback book. I felt it was easier to keep track of characters in the book as i read it but felt that the audio book was a little more exciting.

One of the things I didn't like about this book was an extended suffering scene toward the end of the book. I just didn't enjoy reading it so the book slipped from a 4 start mystery to a 3 star average book.

I was surprised how much I cared about Edward by the end of the book. It probably means that he was well written character that was someone easy to root for.

Pick this up if you like traditional mysteries or other Dick Francis books.

Link is an action film star – no situation is too tough for him to handle as we see in the opening chapter where he is chained to the steering wheel of a car and left to die. Whoops – it’s only a movie scene.

He is also a happily married man with kids, including a disabled daughter. Like all Dick Francis heroes, he’s the sort of good man that goes out of his way to help others, so when a dying longtime friend asks him to go to South Africa to check on her mysteriously doing-poorly race horses, he goes.

But almost immediately he encounters near fatal accidents. And as he unravels the puzzle, he is chained to a car’s steering wheel and left to die – a brutal reimagining of the opening movie scene.

I believe that to really understand the plot, one would need to have knowledge of British inheritance tax laws. Although described in the book, I’m still a bit in the fog. I’m also a bit skeptical about how long one could live in a car in the blazing sun, given the recent concerns over toddler and animal deaths in closed cars.

But even a not-my-favorite Dick Francis is a good read. This one also has interesting details about South Africa, including a detailed chapter on hard rock gold mines.

An early Dick Francis that needs to be read as a period piece. South Africa in the apartheid era for a start. Not as many horses as usual. Nevertheless an enjoyable and undemanding read.

Pithy and action-packed, this thriller moves like a freight train roaring down the track to its inevitable conclusion. This author has a trademarked way of putting his heroes into impossible and deadly traps; this is not his best such effort (the best is Sid Halley) but it is his second-best and it is emotionally powerful. The abrupt conclusion is one of the author's very best and is so very typical of his style...you are left wanting much, much more. On top of everything else, this is a well-done travelogue of South Africa.

One of the best this great writer ever penned. Don't miss it.

Not my favorite Dick Francis. Granted, the tour of a South African gold mine and a game preserve were very interesting, and the--albeit dated--cultural information was also interesting, the story itself was too much man against himself struggling to survive for my taste.

Excellent and enjoyable.

Would be a 5 star, but Francis only gets that rating from me when I feel more conviction. And many of his books are better. Fun having a well developed movie star leading hero for a change. Not as complex or horsey as most Francis storylines. Easy , fun, and fast read, even if a bit superficial.

I read Dick Francis for light, pleasant, put-me-to-sleep diversion. This had his usual intelligent, modest, tenacious, athletic well-mannered hero, this time a successful actor rather than a jockey. Like all of his mysteries, horse racing is involved, though here there is more action in a gold mine and the South African veldt than at the racetrack. There is a rather strange scene that involves a discussion justifying apartheid (the book was published in 1972), the only time I can remember anything even vaguely political in a Dick Francis mystery.

The only Dick Francis book that has ever disappointed me

I know all of his books are very dated but I' ve always felt that his writing was still worth reading. This one, though, was so out of realm of possibility that I didn't finish it. I'll go back to Felix who is a worthy successor to his dad.

Dick Francis is a great story teller. As I read the first part of this book, I wondered what he was doing spending so much time with the actor scenes since the book took place in Africa and not where the opening scenes were. It played out later in the book, and was very clever.

I did not know Dick Francis ever wrote a bad book. And to be fair, I actually didn't get that far into it before giving up so maybe that's a hugely unfair assessment. That said, I found myself disliking the world and uninterested in both the characters and the story from practically moment one in this book, and after a few chapters I just had no interest whatsoever in continuing. I see that the publication date of this one was earlier so maybe this is from early in his career before he'd really matured as an author, but whatever it was, it wasn't what I come to him for. I returned it and am moving on; will stick to later/higher rated books from him in the future. There is no shortage of great ones from him so no need to wade through those that aren't great.

I’ve missed DF mysteries! I love how the main character can have such different backgrounds and professions and what they do helps solve the mystery they were thrown into. This one is a movie star in the early 70’s and it was fun and fascinating. The main characters are always so likable too.